Sam and the Morgan Horse
It all started when I befriended David
Ramsey. Tho the David thing ended badly,
through him, I met my wonderful friends Daniel, the Amish blacksmith, and Dave
Scanlon, a horse dealer, trainer and trucker from
I also met Sol Zook and Sam Stoltzfus. Sam is a tooth floater and horse
trader. Horses' teeth just keep growing and occasionally need to be filed
down so the horses can chew properly.
This is what Sam does and it is fascinating to see him put his arm up to
the elbow into the horse’s mouth to feel the teeth with one hand while he
uses the other hand to use a big file to grind the offending teeth down. Sam is very gentle with the horses and they
don’t offer much objection.
Dave trains Sam's stallion "Beamer"
Now David R. doesn't speak to
any of us anymore - his loss. A couple of weeks ago, Dave Scanlon called
to ask if I might be able to go video tape some horses for Sam Stoltzfus up in
Gap, PA. I said I'd try, so he had Sam call me. I had quite a
number of long conversations with Sam while trying to arrange things. I
realized that with my prehistoric video equipment, I needed electricity and,
guess what, no juice available on an Amish farm. BUT, Sam allowed as how
he could hook up a 12 volt car battery with an inverter. (Later this arrangement fried my friend Daria’s
laptop battery!) I asked
At first I missed his address and had to turn around. At the first farm I came to, there were a couple of men working in the barnyard, so I pulled in. One young fellow meandered up, draped himself over the car near my open window and I said, "I'm looking for Sam Stoltzfus." He asked in a slow drawl with an impish smile, "Now what do you want with Sam Stoltzfus?" I answered brightly, "Well, I have an appointment with him!" He said, "Well then, I guess you've got the right place."
Then Sam proceeded to get the battery and inverter out for me in the middle of a small corral and brought in the first horse. It took some experimenting, since I hadn't operated that camera for many years, but we did get it going. Sam got the youngsters to trot or run around the ring while I tried to video tape them from the center of the pen without losing my balance and falling over.
Then we went to another farm
(no one was at home) where there was a beautiful young colt by Sam's nice
stallion from
As it turned out, I could tell that this video stuff was pretty much a waste of time. I need a new video camera. Sam had a disposable 35mm camera he wanted to get developed, so off we went to Wal-Mart where he was disappointed to find that the one hour machine was down. It was getting to the point where I had to get something to eat, so Sam took us out to lunch at Arby's. We must have looked like quite the odd couple, both of us in our straw hats - mine for the sun, not a fashion statement. Sam, like all Amish men and little boys, never seems to appear outside the home without his straw hat. After lunch, we went back into Wal-Mart to check on the one hour machine, which was still down, and then we looked at video cameras, which I could not afford at the moment. I did have an instructive talk about the camera features with a very knowledgeable sales woman. Back to drop Sam off and then home for me.
I needed some help to try to
hook things up to record and edit the day’s video and still
pictures. Sam eagerly called quite a few times to find out how things
looked. I thought the Amish didn't use their phones that much.
Sam's is in a small shed out behind the barn on the side opposite the
house. If you let it ring long enough, he seems to answer. The
following Saturday, I drove to Gap to get Sam so that he could see what we had
gotten. Not good. We went back to Wal-Mart to retrieve the photos
which had been developed and there were a few nice photos in that batch.
I told him to bring some of the photos he already had so that I'd have material
for a web page to promote his horse, so we spent the afternoon scanning in the
pictures. The next day I edited the photos and saved them for web use.
On Saturday, July 16th, there was a Morgan Horse Auction at Mel's Stable in New Holland, PA. This is an event that is about 95% Amish. Horses arrive from all over the country. I thought it would be fun to go, so arranged to pick up Sam at the crack of dawn on Saturday to go to the big show. Well, Thursday night Sam called to see if I might be able to run him up to the barn so he could take care of his 10 horses that had already been delivered. And could we take his cousin Leroy? I didn't have anything planned, so agreed to do it and arranged for Linda to come back to let the dogs out and meet the boarders if I didn't get back by 5:00. (Good thing, because I didn't get home til 9:00 and I had homework, at that! Sam wondered if I might type up a description for each horse so he could tape them to the stalls and have a few extras copies to hand out, too.)
On the way to the stable, Sam wanted to stop at the hat shop, because
his hat was too well worn to wear at the sale, which is quite the social
event. As I was driving along the country road, Sam said to take
the next right, which I took to mean the next road. Suddenly, he was
shouting "Right there! Up that drive." So I jammed on the
brakes and made the turn up the barn driveway to a farm. When we got to
the top of the drive I saw a small sign that said "Hat Shop."
We went into a small dark room with shelves on two walls that held all sizes of
straw hats. Sam and Leroy kept trying on hats until they found some that
fit. Prices were from about $9.50 to $12 and then they added the black
bands and put their money in the honor box, with a note of the sale.
At the sale barn, Sam got right to work. He would drive all ten horses hitched to a cart similar to a sulky, wash each one when finished, then scrape off the water. All horses had their stalls cleaned, were fed and given a probiotic paste. Sam would reach in the horse's mouth, grab it's tongue to hold out of the way and administer the dose. Sam was very good at doing this with little revolt from the horses. He floats horse teeth for a living (he's a horse dentist) and has a very quiet hand with his horses. Every horse water bucket had to be dumped and filled with fresh water. When he got home, he went to a sing-along at school for his kids.
He called that night to see if we might be able to take his cousin with us to the sale. I said OK. Sam was getting nervous that we might not get to the barn early enough. I had explained that I don't drive at night. He called at 5 AM when I was about to walk out the door to say that he thought he maybe ought to get his neighbor to take him up to the barn early and then I could come a little later and pick up Leroy at his house (I didn't know how to get there) - and could I pick up a friend too? I said OK, but nixed the Sam going ahead deal. I don't know my way around well enough to find Leroy's and the friend's house and I could just see me driving to hell and gone looking for the cousin and friend with no way to call anyone to get further directions if I couldn't find them. So I high-tailed it up to Sam's only to wait in the driveway as he nervously raced around collecting grooming supplies, folding chairs, lunch and water. Sam got into the back seat so while I drove, he could throw the dog crates in the back and put up a second seat to accommodate his friend. Finally we left to go find Leroy, only to discover that he wasn't going to be traveling with us after all. (Now I have to put all the dog crates back in the truck.) OK, on to the friend's house and to the stable.
We arrived at about 6:30
AM. I had really feared I wouldn't get a place to park. There were
license plates from all over the country. I saw plates from
Sam immediately got to work driving every horse - all 10 of them - so they'd have some exercise. Then they all had to have baths, get their feet cleaned and hooves polished black. This seems to tickle some horses, since they keep jerking their feet away. Sam trimmed all the horses ears and fetlocks and maybe more. Cousin Leroy showed up and worked on grooming - brushing and combing through tangled tails and manes. The horses are hooked up from both sides of the halter to a post next to the stall dividers. People just lead horses through the barn and some make it under the lead, some have to have it held up for them. Sam complained that Leroy is slow, but I noted that he has the same quiet way with the horses that Sam has. Not the friend, who's name I never learned. He could care less if he made a horse nervous. But he WAS fast.
I went to the sale barn where they have a FEAST to shop in the loft above the sale runway. Freshly made Amish donuts (you have never had anything LIKE these!), ham and cheese sandwiches which are better than you'd imagine, barbecued chicken grilled that morning out in front of the barn by the men, whoopee pies (my personal favorites - little chocholate cakes with sweet filling like they put in the powdered donuts), and a variety of homemade pies to have with ice cream. Pie a la mode is always available at Amish events and is very popular with the locals.
Also, a serious little boy appeared who followed Sam around like a puppy. I needed no introduction to know this had to be Sam's son. I had no idea how he got there. He never took his eyes off Sam and would occasionally reach under a horse's belly to hand part of the tack to Sam or go give a horse a pat. He was completely comfortable around the horses. Sam was very busy and basically ignored Steven - until lunch time. He asked if he could get something for me, but I had already gotten a sandwich. Sam took a break and devoted his ENTIRE attention to his son, who I found out is five years old. First, he went to the food concesion and brought back a ham and cheese sandwich, which Steven quickly devoured. Next he picked up a piece of the chicken barbecue and held it while Steven ate the meat. Occasionally, he would hold up a drink with a straw in it so the boy could have a drink. When both of them were finished lunch, Sam asked Steven if he would like some desert and went back to the food stand to bring back some ice cream and the requested whoopee pie. It was very hot, so the ice cream was melting quickly and Sam made sure to help him eat it and keep the bowl level so it didn't pour all over the child. The entire time Sam was helping and talking to him, he leaned over to get down to eye level with his son.
Steven had shoes on, but many of the children and
young adult women were barefoot - trouping through the barns and out on the
gravel driveway. Many go barefoot from early Spring until Fall. I
have only seen one man barefoot and that was someone touring the barn this
weekend. In the barn, several little boys liked to climb the rails that
formed the stalls. They'd sometimes climb up and sit straddled on the top
bar just to look around and talk. I think if they'd been my children, I
probably would have panicked and made them come down immediately, but no one
seemed worried and I must say they were so sure of themselves that I wasn't
worried either. At one point, Steven waited until there was no one around
to walk to the stall at the end of the barn. It just happened to catch my
eye that he was answering nature's call, peeing right into the stall. I
was dumbfounded at the width of the stream and how long it went on - and on and
on! This is a tiny little kid and I just don't know where he was keeping
all this fluid!!!
I walked to the sales barn and ran into Emma Stoltzfus, Daniel's eldest daughter. I found out from her where Daniel was sitting watching the sale and made my way to find him. After we said hi (it had been a long time since I'd seen him) he asked where was my scooter. When I said I'd left it in the car, he jumped up to offer to help me get it out of the car. I said I was afraid it would spook the horses, but he said no and repeated his offer, but I said I was OK. There was a seat right in front of him, so I sat and talked with him for a while. Later he came down to the barn to visit me where I was sitting with Sam and his horses. There were more bleachers outside the barn next to the house. In the morning mist, while all the men were busy, many of the women watched the men driving the horses from the vantage point of the house porch.
The barns had enormous fans in the barns, keeping them surprisingly cool. It was another very hot day in a string of 90 degree days, so by 2:00 in the heat of the day, I was ready to go home. What a wonderful two days! Then on Monday, Dave, Sam and I had lunch at the Gap Diner. This was very nice since Dave had been unable to come to the Morgan sale and it was good to see him again. However, poor Sam could hardly keep his eyes open!
The
Firehouse Sale and Auction
Amish
Road Auction
The Farms
One Family's
Farm
Blacksmith
Working Horse
Teams
Smucker's Harness Shop
Shopping for
Flowers
Clothes
Lines
The
2005 Morgan Horse Sale